One of the things that most impressed me about this class is that my definition of leadership has changed. I did not come into 565 expecting to change my view all that much, but what I see now is that leadership can come in different shapes and sizes. I see now that I can lead my building through my work in the classroom, through committee projects I'm involved with directing, as well as the way I can manage relations between staff members. I think I now view a teacher leader as someone who can effect change in a school through their work with students, other teachers, administration or community. This definition has broadened considerably from the definition I started with, and I now feel I can view myself as a leader in my building.
I think my view of my leadership potential has not changed, I've always felt that I had potential to lead within my building community. I now view myself as someone who is already one of the leaders at my school.
Finally, I do and always have agreed with our books assertion of change from within. This is why I have always worked hard to make meaningful use of time working on a variety of committees. The committees I have joined all have meaning and interest to me and we have worked hard to implement parts of our vision into the larger school community. Finally, taking part in this program has helped me to change our community from within as I relate the new experiences of this program into my teaching career.
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Week 5 - 565
I was struck by one of the videos this week. I watch the one featuring the found of Ebay and Participant Pictures. His name has completely escaped me as I write and I suppose it isn't terribly important. But what struck me about the video was that he was a highly successful individual as a businessman, but it wasn't until now that he was invited to speak at TED.
They weren't so concerned about EBay and all the changes it brought. By virtue of their invitation to speak they were interested in his film company and their mission. To make films that inform the public and encourage action. I found that I had seen a lot of his films and some of them did move me to take action, whether it be action in learning more, voting a particular way, discussions with my friends, or passing on the experience to students. At the time I didn't think too much about that, but that is really cool. This guy (insert name) makes movies that make me take action. How cool would it be to have that ability? He changes people's opinions, points of view, and actions. Wait that is what I do.
How can I do it better? I need to apply his formula to my class. I want to spark my students to take action. I do this, sometimes, but I want to do it more frequently.
It took me awhile to see how this video fit into the topic of the class, which is enacting, encouraging, leading change, but now I see it. He changes people, conversations, actions with his films and I can do the same thing in my class.
Click Here to go to their social action page. I'm amazed by how many actions he is providing avenues for people to take as a result of the films his company is making. Try one.
They weren't so concerned about EBay and all the changes it brought. By virtue of their invitation to speak they were interested in his film company and their mission. To make films that inform the public and encourage action. I found that I had seen a lot of his films and some of them did move me to take action, whether it be action in learning more, voting a particular way, discussions with my friends, or passing on the experience to students. At the time I didn't think too much about that, but that is really cool. This guy (insert name) makes movies that make me take action. How cool would it be to have that ability? He changes people's opinions, points of view, and actions. Wait that is what I do.
How can I do it better? I need to apply his formula to my class. I want to spark my students to take action. I do this, sometimes, but I want to do it more frequently.
It took me awhile to see how this video fit into the topic of the class, which is enacting, encouraging, leading change, but now I see it. He changes people, conversations, actions with his films and I can do the same thing in my class.
Click Here to go to their social action page. I'm amazed by how many actions he is providing avenues for people to take as a result of the films his company is making. Try one.
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Week 4 - 565
What a great title! I feel the real highlight of the week was the activity in class. I really felt like my group struggled. We never really got a grasp on what we were actually doing. Once we figured out how the game worked, we skipped past the part where we analyzed the problem that the game was presenting and we went to throwing darts at the wall, hoping to hit a bulls-eye, or even the board. The dynamic in the group was a bit off, and I think the time crunch and all the different jobs affected us all in different ways.
I think the real lesson is clear though, that change is hard. There is a lot to do, and you can totally fail if you don't get your act together right from the start. This is something I always struggle with, that people don't just hop on board. I feel something is so clearly right and the way to go, but I need to do a better job of slowing down, considering other points of view, and making sure their is actual evidence that this is the best road, not just my point of view.
This is a week that I can definitely take back to the real world and learn something from. That makes it a good week.
I think the real lesson is clear though, that change is hard. There is a lot to do, and you can totally fail if you don't get your act together right from the start. This is something I always struggle with, that people don't just hop on board. I feel something is so clearly right and the way to go, but I need to do a better job of slowing down, considering other points of view, and making sure their is actual evidence that this is the best road, not just my point of view.
This is a week that I can definitely take back to the real world and learn something from. That makes it a good week.
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Continuous Change
In going through this weeks resources I was constantly reminded of a quote I had come across in the not so distant past. The quote said something to the effect that education is a field that is historically slow to change.
When I first read this quote I agreed and went along my merry way, but after this week that sense has been constantly on my mind. I'm wondering how a profession that deals with so many different individual kids during a year, then gets a new batch every year can at the same time be slow to change. That to me signals a big problem. It has made me nervous as my school building faces a million changes in the next month, summer, year. Can we handle it?
The question is how do you best implement change in an institution like ours? There has to be leadership. This is why I'm so nervous about my school moving through the next stage in our life, we have lacked effective leadership in our building for as long as I've been there. I like my school, but it is somewhat a mess. We are going to get our 4th principal in the last 8 years in July, and next year we will have a minimum of seven new faces on staff out of a staff of 42. He has a big job, and I'm hopeful that he understands how to work the system, leading change, and how to rebuild a fractured community. I am also hopeful that I can fulfill an earlier blog post and put myself out there as a leader in the building for change. I know I can do it, I think a lot of lessons for our future can come out of this week's materials.
When I first read this quote I agreed and went along my merry way, but after this week that sense has been constantly on my mind. I'm wondering how a profession that deals with so many different individual kids during a year, then gets a new batch every year can at the same time be slow to change. That to me signals a big problem. It has made me nervous as my school building faces a million changes in the next month, summer, year. Can we handle it?
The question is how do you best implement change in an institution like ours? There has to be leadership. This is why I'm so nervous about my school moving through the next stage in our life, we have lacked effective leadership in our building for as long as I've been there. I like my school, but it is somewhat a mess. We are going to get our 4th principal in the last 8 years in July, and next year we will have a minimum of seven new faces on staff out of a staff of 42. He has a big job, and I'm hopeful that he understands how to work the system, leading change, and how to rebuild a fractured community. I am also hopeful that I can fulfill an earlier blog post and put myself out there as a leader in the building for change. I know I can do it, I think a lot of lessons for our future can come out of this week's materials.
Friday, May 21, 2010
Data and WINNS and Driving
This is my first trip to the WINNS site, and outside of the painfully long waiting periods, I really enjoyed looking at much of the information. For my first glimpse I focused on the WKCE data and found that we performed about where I expected to. What I was surprised to see is a decrease in our proficient/advanced numbers over the last 5-6 years. It has not been a constant decrease, but it looks to my untrained eyes like a decrease. You can see it HERE.
The next step was to identify the why and my first instinct was to look at the sub groups of race or economic status. The first race/ethnicity probably has not had an impact, while our numbers of students in the Hispanic and Black categories have increased our overall number is still very small and therefore has had a negligible impact on our data.
The second group, economically disadvantaged has grown, and what I noticed was that their scoring has dramatically decreased over that time. It would seem to me that with a group a little over 10% of the overall population decreasing significantly would have the effect of bringing down the overall score slowly, but surely.
Now, there could easily be other, more significant reasons to our decrease, but the fact remains, our economically disadvantaged students are being left further and further behind. Now I suppose we identify the problem, solving it should be easy right?
Last point: We don't really do this in our district. My feeling is that we go on and on about being a data driven district, but I don't recall ever being shown meaningful, straight forward data that made any sense to me. I liked this. I found value in this exercise. I couldn't say the same thing when we have had PD's using data in the past. I wouldn't say we are data driven, but I think I would like to be, as long as we become good drivers.
The next step was to identify the why and my first instinct was to look at the sub groups of race or economic status. The first race/ethnicity probably has not had an impact, while our numbers of students in the Hispanic and Black categories have increased our overall number is still very small and therefore has had a negligible impact on our data.
The second group, economically disadvantaged has grown, and what I noticed was that their scoring has dramatically decreased over that time. It would seem to me that with a group a little over 10% of the overall population decreasing significantly would have the effect of bringing down the overall score slowly, but surely.
Now, there could easily be other, more significant reasons to our decrease, but the fact remains, our economically disadvantaged students are being left further and further behind. Now I suppose we identify the problem, solving it should be easy right?
Last point: We don't really do this in our district. My feeling is that we go on and on about being a data driven district, but I don't recall ever being shown meaningful, straight forward data that made any sense to me. I liked this. I found value in this exercise. I couldn't say the same thing when we have had PD's using data in the past. I wouldn't say we are data driven, but I think I would like to be, as long as we become good drivers.
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Leader?
This week's blog deals with leaders in a building, specifically me. Am I a Leader? How do I Lead? Why do some people Lead while others Follow?
The simple answer is that yes I am a leader in my school.
The long answer says not yet.
Am I involved in decisions? Yes.
Do I take active roles in professional development? Yes.
Do I participate fully in committee activities? Yes.
Do I share my views on issues that face my school? Yes.
Do some people value and consider my advice on issues? Yes.
Do I lead our building towards positive and real change? Not yet.
It is this final not yet that results in my long answer being the way it is. I don't view myself as a leader because I have not yet led anyone or any group down a road to positive change. I have been a partner in bringing change, but I would not say I was the catalyst, or the leader. There is hope for me yet, it is early in my career. I'm confident that if I can carry out the visions and plans of my mind I can become a leader in my building, but that is still future tense.
With my current projects in progress for PLP and my MEIT proposal, I see no reason for them not to be ideas that could lead to significant change in our building for both students and teachers. If they are successful and spread, then I would feel more comfortable with the label leader.
My PLP project involves creating online presentation portfolios (sample) for students to reflect and share their work and learning with teachers, parents and other students. Our school previously had these in binder form, and we are actively working to improve the process and bring it and our students into the web 2.0 era.
My MEIT proposal has been discussed in other blog posts, but I feel like it will do for me, as a teacher, what the SLC does for students. It puts my work out there for others, it allows me to collaborate with peers, and it allows my students to expand their understanding of curriculum and their world simultaneously.
As I mentioned before I am excited about both of these ideas. I know it will be a lot of work and there will be setbacks, but I'm excited nonetheless. The last statements go for being a building leader as well.
The simple answer is that yes I am a leader in my school.
The long answer says not yet.
Am I involved in decisions? Yes.
Do I take active roles in professional development? Yes.
Do I participate fully in committee activities? Yes.
Do I share my views on issues that face my school? Yes.
Do some people value and consider my advice on issues? Yes.
Do I lead our building towards positive and real change? Not yet.
It is this final not yet that results in my long answer being the way it is. I don't view myself as a leader because I have not yet led anyone or any group down a road to positive change. I have been a partner in bringing change, but I would not say I was the catalyst, or the leader. There is hope for me yet, it is early in my career. I'm confident that if I can carry out the visions and plans of my mind I can become a leader in my building, but that is still future tense.
With my current projects in progress for PLP and my MEIT proposal, I see no reason for them not to be ideas that could lead to significant change in our building for both students and teachers. If they are successful and spread, then I would feel more comfortable with the label leader.
My PLP project involves creating online presentation portfolios (sample) for students to reflect and share their work and learning with teachers, parents and other students. Our school previously had these in binder form, and we are actively working to improve the process and bring it and our students into the web 2.0 era.
My MEIT proposal has been discussed in other blog posts, but I feel like it will do for me, as a teacher, what the SLC does for students. It puts my work out there for others, it allows me to collaborate with peers, and it allows my students to expand their understanding of curriculum and their world simultaneously.
As I mentioned before I am excited about both of these ideas. I know it will be a lot of work and there will be setbacks, but I'm excited nonetheless. The last statements go for being a building leader as well.
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